The last time horror fiction was a thing, during the 1990s, the market flooded with terrible trend-following books, and the inevitable contraction killed or prevented the careers of some talented horror-smiths. Now, Jo Fletcher with Jo Fletcher Books predicts a new horror comeback, among other trends, in an interview with SFX:

Horror is making a bit of a comeback; I just hope publishers don't do what they did last time: spot the trend and all rush to publish without actually knowing much about the genre. "YA" seems to be surging ahead right now, and that makes me smile a little – of course, YA is not just for genre fiction, but a large percentage of what's currently out there is fantasy or horror, or even SF. And a lot of what's currently bring put out as "young adult" fantasy could equally well be published for the adult market (as it has been for all those years when there was no such thing in the UK as YA). I don't know what's going to happen to all those paranormal romance readers, but it's looking like the vampire thing is beginning to die back a little . . .

She also predicts more waves of George R.R. Martin and Charlaine Harris imitators, and publishers starting more boutique genre imprints. Which hopefully means more cool books for us to get excited about. The whole interview is well worth reading.

Top image: Cover detail from The Monadic Universe by George Zebrowski.